Feather
Feather was a powerful Rebel sorceress who fought against the Lady's Empire in The Black Company. At the time of her first mention in the Annals, she had just been "recently promoted" to the Rebel leadership, a group called the Circle of Eighteen. She was kidnapped alongside her newlywed husband, Journey, by the Black Company and delivered to the Lady. Feather and Journey were subsequently forced to serve their enemy upon being enslaved as members of the new Taken. Feather and the rest of the new Taken, with the sole exception of Whisper, dressed identically. ''The Black Company'' Feather was a sorceress of significant magnitude who fought with the Rebel armies against the Lady's Empire. When several original members of the Circle of Eighteen (the Rebel leadership) were neutralized by the Lady's forces, Feather and her newlywed husband Journey were promoted to fill two vacancies. The actions of Feather and Journey prior to this point were unspecified in the Annals. Feather and Journey were both captured and subdued during their honeymoon by the Black Company, which was an elite unit in service to the Lady. Bound, they were smuggled through Rebel territory, and were finally delivered by the Howler's flying carpet to the Tower at Charm. There, they were secretly subjected to the Lady's Eye and the horrors of the Rite of Taking, during which they became the second and third members of the new Taken. At the Battle of Charm After disappearing into the Tower as prisoners, Feather and Journey reappeared dramatically during the climactic Battle of Charm. They did not have command over a significant portion of the troops defending the Tower, unlike the Lady's more senior champions: Ten Who Were Taken and Whisper. At a critical juncture in the battle, the Lady signalled for Feather to sound a special silver horn. Feather up until this point was a disguised, anonymous rider bestride a black stallion. She removed her face covering and sounded the horn. At this moment, the Annalist Croaker first realized the two Rebel prisoners had been Taken just as Whisper had. Feather's horn, and Journey's subsequent signal, summoned the Lady's hidden war elephants, which rampaged througout the Rebel ranks. Later in that battle, when Lord Jalena's troops began to waver and were pushed by the Rebel into one of the retaining walls outside the Tower, Feather made a death-defying leap with her black stallion, sounded her horn again, and joined the combat beside Journey, Whisper, and Soulcatcher. She was almost certainly among the Imperial combatants who finished off the Rebel groups which penetrated the Tower at the end of the battle. After the battle, Croaker rode Feather's special stallion when he and Silent left to secretly track down Raven and Darling. ''Shadows Linger'' Feather, her husband Journey, and especially Whisper were superiors of the Black Company for their employer the Lady throughout most of Shadows Linger. Without the Lady's knowledge, Feather and Whisper secretly plotted some kind of revenge action against the Company (presumably for the group's role in their Taking). While the details of this plot were not specified in the Annals, news of the plot's discovery was the reason why the Black Company abandoned the Empire. It was Feather who took custody of the prisoner Lisa Daele Bowalk from Croaker, Otto, Crake, Walleye, and other members of the Black Company. She was impressed with Lisa's resolve in the face of immense danger. Distracted, Feather fell for Croaker's ruse that Marron Shed was deceased, when in fact he was merely feigning death. She departed on her flying carpet with the terrified captive. Lisa, on her way to be interrogated for her dealings with the Black Castle of Juniper, let out a single cry as she disappeared into the night sky. Death and aftermath During the Battle of Juniper, Feather used powerful sorcery to attack the Black Castle from her flying carpet. When the Black Watchers fought back with a kind of sorcery artillery, she was blasted from the air and killed in a dramatic explosion. She was the first of the Lady's Taken to die. Her husband Journey was enraged, and attempted to avenge her. When his own carpet was destroyed by the Black Watchers' counterattacks, he stole the Limper's carpet, and lost that one as well. Later, the Lady explained to Croaker via her mental connection with him that Feather and Whisper had conspired without her knowledge to threaten the Black Company. This was the danger that the Captain had somehow uncovered, which caused him to secretly order the senior Company brothers to flee Juniper, and which inspired him to steal the Lady's own carpet, resulting in his death. Only by her death in combat did Feather escape the grave punishment that her co-conspirator Whisper was subjected to for this betrayal. Category:Characters Category:Wizards Category:Rebel Category:Enemies of the Black Company Category:Circle of Eighteen Category:New Taken Category:Allies of the Black Company